Sunday, May 29, 2005

Just to add in the UK..Blair attended in bilderberg in 1992 whilst Gordon Brown attended in '91, who happens to be the much touted next PM.jasonf.Gov. Mark R. Warner quietly slipped away this month to Germany for a secretive weekend conclave of global economic and foreign-policy figures.Warner confirmed Monday that he took part in the annual Bilderberg meeting the weekend of May 6-8 at a resort hotel near Munich.

Other U.S. participants included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, Ford Motor Co. Chairman and CEO Bill Ford and Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder addressed the group, Warner said.

"My sense was you had the opportunity here to interact with the leading business leaders not only of the United States but in all of Europe," Warner said in an interview.

Participants are forbidden to disclose what they discussed.

"I think I should honor the ground rules," Warner said when asked for details.

The organizers closely guard the identity of those they invite and the venue and times of the conference.

The Bilderberg meeting was not on the governor's public schedule.

Warner said he used his personal money to book a commercial flight to Germany. Just days earlier, he had returned feeling ill and eight pounds lighter from a two-week trade mission to Japan and India.

"It was an opportunity for him, as chairman of the [National Governors Association], to talk about the challenges of the global economy for American workers, for companies and for schools and, as governor of Virginia, to learn a bit more about how we as a state can compete," said Ellen Qualls, Warner's communications director.

A year ago, John Edwards, then a U.S. senator from North Carolina who became John Kerry's Democratic running mate, attended the Bilderberg meeting. In 1991, then-Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder attended the conference; at the time, he was considering running for president.

Warner has been mentioned prominently as a possible contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Note: UK..Blair attended in bilderberg in 1992 whilst Gordon Brown attended in '91, who happens to be the much touted next PM.jasonf.